United had bowed out of the League Cup and the FA Cup at an
early stage which had left them relatively free to carry on a twin assault on
the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and more importantly the Football League title.
Their League challenge was looking to be on course and they were hoping to
maintain their European challenge, but knew from past experience that the
Hungarian UjpestDozsa were
going to offer them a stiff challenge. United were still quietly confident as they
held a good record against Ujpest having beaten them
4-1 in their previous encounter 1966 at the same stage of the same competition.
Ujpest still had the nucleus of the team which played
so well against United back in 1966, Laszlo Fazekas, JanosGorocs, the incomparable FerencBene, AntalDunai and SandorZambo were all still in their prime. But almost three years
to the day after that impressive United performance
the Magyars got their revenge as they turned the tables in a stunning display
and thoroughly deserved their 1-0 victory.

Paul Madeley had recovered from
injury and duly took the place of the suspended Terry Cooper at left back. United
playing in blue with Ujpest in their normal white,
began well with Eddie Gray pulling a left foot shot wide, Paul Madeley heading against the bar and Rod Belfitt,
who was preferred to Peter Lorimer, shooting over the
bar after AntalSzentimihalyi did well to parry a hard shot from Johnny
Giles. However, it was not all one-way traffic and Jack Charlton was forced to
head against his own crossbar and Paul Madeley had to
head over to relieve the pressure in the same attack.

On the night the Hungarians were the better team and it came
as no surprise when AntalDunai
won the tie for them with a seventy-first minute goal much to the Ujpest player’s delight but the game really hinged on two
key incidents. Ten minutes into the second half with the score still 0-0 an
Eddie Gray cross was handled by defender ErnoNosko but AntalSzentimihalyi, Ujpest’s six foot
two inch goalkeeper dived low to his right to keep out Johnny Giles’ penalty
kick. It was a rare miss by the normally deadly Irishman and United were to pay
a high price as the winner came after seventy-two minutes when the
ever-dangerous FerencBene
fed a short pass to Albert Dunai, who hooked a
powerful twenty-five yard shot into Gary Sprake’s
right hand corner of the net. Ujpest were lightning quick on the break and received
a standing ovation from the crowd at the final whistle from an appreciative Elland Road crowd.

“They are
an excellent side, good all-round and very fast on the break from defence to attack,” said United Manager Don Revie, who now had to take his side to Hungary for their
forty-seventh European match and for the first time they would be going into
the away leg in arrears.

Match Action:

Laszlo Fazekas celebrates
AntalDunai’s goal by
swinging on the United crossbar